


Personal Growth

by VelkynKarma



Series: Parallel by Proxy [13]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Ensemble Fic, Gen, In which Ryou accidentally stumbles into a hobby, Kuron (Voltron)-centric, Kuron is Shiro (Voltron)'s Clone, minor mentions of illness, minor mentions of nightmares, probably the closest to fluff it's possible for me to write
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-19
Updated: 2019-04-25
Packaged: 2020-01-16 14:17:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18523267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VelkynKarma/pseuds/VelkynKarma
Summary: Ryou has been doing his best to find a unique interest to call his own. He hadn't exactly planned on this one, though.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is the third moderately fluffy fic I've written in a row. 2019's been a weird year so far.

It all starts innocently enough, on a diplomatic mission on Xa’tix.

The Zenatixx are a frightening-looking race of man-sized insectoids that are most like a cross between a wasp and a mantis. They walk upright on four segmented legs, have long, pointed claw-fingers, multiple bulbous eyes, and large pincer-mouths that make everything they say click or hiss. They are, by anyone’s reckoning, absolutely terrifying monstrosities that would not look out of place in an old black and white Hollywood horror flick. 

Despite that, Ryou actually enjoys the four quintents he spends on Xa’tix, working with the Zenatixx to arrange their joining the coalition. 

Despite their frightening appearance, the Zenatixx are actually a peaceful and relatively harmless race, more akin to Earth bumblebees or butterflies. They aren’t warlike by nature and prefer communal building and cultivating over combat and bloodshed. That was why, when the Galra’s advanced scouts had started to come dangerously close to their star system, they had reached out to Voltron for aid. 

Ryou had been in his element, working with the Zenatixx to arrange the terms for their inclusion the coalition. Unlike many of the races that had already joined, Xa’tix could not provide soldiers, and their queen was unwilling to force a draft on her people. But they were willing to provide aid in other ways. As skilled growers and cultivators, they were more than willing to gift supplies, herbal remedies, and foodstuffs to the coalition’s effort, and to other races who had suffered under the hands of the Galra, in exchange for protection. 

Ryou had seen no reason to force a culture and people built on peace and cultivation for thousands of years to learn the brutal art of warfare. The coalition had plenty of willing soldiers, the paladins, and Voltron. The gifts the Zenatixx could offer were just as needed, and just as useful. 

So he works with them to meet their needs, speaking on Voltron’s behalf. And by the end of the four quintents they’ve arranged for initial negotiations, both sides satisfied with the arrangements. 

“You are a paladin of Voltron too, are you not, Speaker?” Kelex’vis, the negotiator for the queen, asks on the final quintent. The farewell party waits at a respectful distance, after formally escorting Ryou back to his Altean pod for his departure.

“I am,” Ryou agrees, with a nod. He can’t help but smile a little at that. Even now, feebs after making his own full bond with the Black Lion and taking on his own color, it still feels good to be able to say that so freely.

“We must confess,” Kelex’vis admits, “We did not expect a warrior to negotiate so favorably in honor of peace. Warlords taste of blood and forget the taste of nectar in turn. We did not expect you to...understand our position.” 

“I understand your concerns,” Ryou says. With so much of the universe dividing into two fronts, it wasn’t hard to see how peaceful races like these might feel they were forced to choose the lesser evil of two overlords. “But I would say, as someone who has experienced war, I’ve come to appreciate peace far more for what it is.” 

“Wise words, Speaker-paladin,” Kelex’vis says. “We appreciate that you have worked so hard to accommodate our needs, even in times of war.”

“A paladin’s mission is peace first, and to help those in need,” Ryou says, quoting Allura from Shiro’s memories. “If we have to fight to do so, we will. Especially if it spares others hardship of any kind.”

“The queen chooses wisely with your Voltron, Speaker-paladin,” Kelex’vis says. “We have no fears any longer of your coalition, if the rest of its minds are like to yours. We will begin preparations this quintent for new cultivations in turn, to aid those who take up the blade for us.” 

He bows, a strangely graceful and simultaneously odd act of crouching on multiple legs. Ryou is continually amazed at how creatures that look so outwardly terrifying can have so much fluidity and poise. “But we also wish to honor you, Speaker-paladin, for speaking for us in turn with honor and wisdom.”

Ryou blinks. “Me? I’m grateful, but there’s really no need for that. The coalition would willingly accept you and your needs regardless of who spoke with you. I’m merely the messenger.”

“Perhaps. But nevertheless, it is you who has championed our cause when accepting us into your coalition. And it is you who becomes the face of your coalition for the Zenatixx.” 

Ryou barely even needs to suppress the urge to flinch at the casual use of the word ‘champion.’ Kelex’vis so obviously means it in a heartfelt, thankful way, and Shiro’s memories in relation to it are distant in his own head. It’s more reflex than anything else, at this point. 

Kelex’vis doesn’t even notice. “A warrior, even a paladin, would not be expected to know peace. A warrior could not be expected to understand our desperation to preserve our culture and our way of life. But you have shown wisdom and honor. You have strength but do not use it needlessly. You still value the taste of nectar over blood.” He claps his long, sharp, spindly forearms together, and gestures to the side. “To that end, the queen wishes to bestow upon you a gift of gratitude.” 

To Kelex’vis’s left, another, smaller Zenatixx—this one a servant—steps forward with a polished resin tray. The creature bows on four spindly legs as he outstretches multiple arms, offering the tray and the gift that sits atop it to Ryou. 

Ryou stares. The gift in question is a beautiful golden-leaved plant in an equally beautiful hand-crafted resin pot. The plant has long tendrils, like some kind of ivy, that swirl out from its center and cascade gently over the edges of the planter. Little buds are just visible underneath some of the leaves, which each shimmer just slightly with a lustrous sheen. 

“This is a cutting of  _ Zix’na’vess,  _ dream ivy, from the queen’s own personal gardens,” Kelex’vis states. “She made the cutting herself and extends it as an offering to Speaker-paladin Ryou in gratitude for his protection of peace.”

Ryou has to actively focus on  _ not  _ letting his jaw drop. “I can’t take this,” he says, stunned. “It’s so important to your people!” 

Dream ivy was extraordinarily rare, more precious and more valuable to the Zenatixx than gold, gems or gac. It was said to encourage calmness and had the ability to ease tensions or anxieties. Ryou had only seen it from afar, once, when initially being given a tour through the queen’s palace in her gardens. 

The properties of the plant were so valued and protected by the Zenatixx that one of the responsibilities of Zenatixx nobility was to tend to beds of dream ivy. For them to just  _ give  _ him a cutting would be like the Galra gifting quintessence out of the kindness of their hearts. 

But Kelex’vis shakes his head and clicks his pincers.  _ “Zix’na’vess  _ is a symbol of peace and prosperity, and a plant of healing,” he says. “The queen is most insistent that you have earned the right to bear a cutting away with you. We agree with our queen’s wisdom. Voltron is by necessity a groupmind of war, but it fights to bring peace. We wish that this will bring peace to you, too, when you may step away from the necessary evils of bloodshed.”

What else can Ryou say to that? He’s not sure he believes most of the lore and legend around the ivy, but that hardly matters. This is an incredibly important act to the Zenatixx; to refuse would not only be rude, but ostracizing. 

“Then if that is how the Zenatixx feel, I would be honored to accept this offering,” Ryou says, as he carefully takes the tray and the plant atop it from the servant. “Please give the queen my thanks for such a thoughtful and valuable gift.” 

“We will do so,” Zenatixx agrees. “And now we will let you take your leave back to your Voltron. It has been an honor meeting you, Speaker-paladin.” He bows again. 

Ryou can’t quite manage to do the same back, with his hands full with the tray and pot of dream ivy, but he offers a polite incline of his head in return. “It’s been a pleasure working with you as well. Thank you for hosting me for the last four quintents. Your planet is beautiful; Voltron will ensure it remains so for many decafeebs to come.”

The content humming buzz Kelex’vis emits is a clear sign that this had been exactly the right thing to say.

The Zenatixx wait respectfully to see Ryou off until he’s safely settled back in his Altean pod. He’s right on time. Allura is scheduled to open a wormhole for him in ten doboshes, just past Xa’tix’s third moon, a respectful enough distance to not be invasive. He has just enough time to boot up the systems and get the pod ready to launch. 

Even so, he does take a few extra ticks to tuck the resin planter of dream ivy carefully into the copilot’s seat, and fasten it in securely. Wormhole travel can be...uncomfortable. The last thing he’d want is for the plant to fall or shatter. 

Ryou easily pilots the little Altean ship out of Xa’tix’s main city, and lazily circles the planet as he heads for the rendezvous point. Once safely away from any obstacles or ships, though, and close enough that it’s just a matter of waiting for Allura to create a wormhole, he glances over at the plant on the seat next to him again. 

It really had been an impressive gift, by Zenatixx standards. A valuable and meaningful offering with cultural significance, and a symbol of the trust the people of Xa’tix had in Voltron and the coalition. Ryou is genuinely touched by the display, and the dream ivy itself is a beautiful gift.

There’s just one teensy, tiny problem with it: Ryou has absolutely no idea how to keep it alive.

* * *

 

Ryou tries his best, once he’s back home on the Castle of Lions.

He doesn’t have much in his room, which was already fairly spartan when he still thought he was Shiro, and hasn’t accumulated much since. But he clears off a space on his already mostly empty clothes chest and gives the dream ivy the prime real estate, right in the center. 

The golden leafy tendrils cascade gently over the amber resin planter and just barely touch the top of the chest. But from what Ryou remembers of the Zenatixx queen’s garden, the beds of ivy could grow to enormous sizes. It could, presumably, overtake the entire furniture fixture, given enough time. 

Assuming Ryou can get it to live that long.

Which, as quintents pass, is looking less and less likely. In just a few quintents, the dream ivy loses its lustrous, shimmering sheen, and the leaves are chalkier and paler. By the end of the first spicolian movement, the edges of some of of the leaves start to curl and brown. When Ryou runs his fingers over them carefully, they sometimes crackle and flake.

He figures that means it’s probably dehydrated, but watering doesn’t seem to help the plant any. He gives it enough water that the rich soil is completely damp, but that doesn’t make a difference. After another spicolian movement, more of the leaves have blackened and shriveled, and several of the little buds hidden in the leafy folds have fallen off completely.

Baffled and a little frustrated, Ryou tries reducing the water, and moving the plant around his room. Maybe it just wants a better spot. He shifts it around on the clothes chest, on his nightstand, on the floor, even puts it at the foot of his bed one night, but none of it seems to help. The poor plant continues to wither.

Now more than a little desperate to save the poor thing, Ryou tries taking it to other places in the Castle of Lions. Maybe the atmosphere or the light in the paladin quarters just wasn’t right. He tries the starlight on the bridge, and the kitchen when he’s cooking. He even tries Kaltenecker’s room, figuring the Earth simulations would help, and only narrowly avoids getting the dream ivy eaten by a hungry cow for his trouble. 

Nothing he does works. Each day, the dream ivy shrivels and browns a little more. 

Ryou feels terrible about it. It’s probably a silly thing to feel bad about—it’s just a plant, at the end of the day. But it had been a truly well-intentioned gift with a lot of meaning behind it. And it wasn’t the plant’s fault it got stuck with an idiot that didn’t know anything about plants. 

Most importantly, it’s  _ alive.  _ And yet, Ryou just can’t seem to keep the poor thing that way, try as he might.

Shiro finds him at the height of his struggle for the dream ivy in the Black Lion, sitting cross-legged in the pilot’s chair with the wilting planter in his lap. His predecessor clearly isn’t expecting anyone else to be there, but stops short in perplexed surprise when he catches sight of Ryou.

“What are you doing here in the middle of the day?” he asks, bemused.

“I could ask you the same thing,” Ryou says.

Shiro raises an eyebrow at the painfully obvious deflection. “I came to get the bayard,” he says, gesturing to the base form of the weapon sitting on the dashboard. It glows purple as he does, and disperses into energy, flashing through the air into his hand. “I’m doing a few training sessions with the Gladiator today. Your turn.”

Ryou does his best to keep his sheepish thoughts from transmitting too strongly over the Black Lion’s link. “I, uh...was going to see if Black could do something to help the plant.”

“Plant?” Shiro glances down in his lap. “Is that the plant you got from that diplomatic mission a few movements ago?”

“Yes,” Ryou says with a sigh, running his left hand over one of the leafy tendrils. The leaves had once been soft and soothing to rub between his thumb and forefinger, but now they’re cracked and brittle. A few flakes break off and flutter into his lap.

Shiro frowns. “I can see why you’d think it’d need help, but what’s Black supposed to do about it?”

Black echoes the sentiments in their minds. It transmits thoughts of polite interest and soothing reassurance, but it doesn’t seem to understand anything about the plant, or why it’s important to Ryou at all. If anything, it seems more concerned with the fact that Ryou is not happy than the actual cause of the problem.

Ryou supposes that makes sense, in a way. Black’s wheelhouse is air, space and realities, not plants. That still doesn’t make him feel any better. “I don’t know,” he grouses. “They do all this other crazy stuff with energy and magic and whatever else. I figured it was worth a shot.” 

Black offers the mental approximate of a pat on the head and a ‘there, there.’ Ryou gets the impression of a toddler upset about a broken toy, and a parent being indulgently reassuring. Somehow, that just makes him more irritable. 

“Maybe I’ll go ask Green,” he grumbles. “Green does plants, right?”

Shiro merely raises an eyebrow at that. Black doesn’t seem terribly offended, although then again, Ryou’s threat wouldn’t have much bite. He can’t actually talk to Green, after all. That conversation would be over before it started.

“What happened, anyway?” Shiro asks, glancing down at the wilting dream ivy in Ryou’s lap.

“What happened is that you are very bad at plants,” Ryou sighs, “and so I’m very bad at plants too, by proxy.” 

_ “I’m  _ bad at plants?” Shiro says, both brows raising now. “You’re not me, remember? What do I have to do with this?”

“I got all my knowledge from you, obviously.”

“That hardly means it’s  _ my  _ fault. You could be great with plants.” 

Ryou stares at him for a long moment, then down at the withered dream ivy. “This is great with plants? I killed the  _ peace plant _ . I don’t even want to know what  _ that  _ symbolizes.”

“It doesn’t look  _ completely  _ dead yet.”

“Thanks,” Ryou says, tone dry.  

“I’m saying you could maybe still salvage it, if you wanted.” 

“And how the hell am I supposed to do that?” Ryou asks, incredulous. “Nothing I’ve done so far has worked. I think I’ve been actively killing it, frankly.” It probably would have been better off without him. It  _ really  _ would have been better off remaining on Xa’tix in the first place.

Shiro shrugs. “So take it to Ryner. We’re stopping by Olkarion tomorrow anyway for supplies. They’re good with plants, right? Maybe she can fix it.” 

“Fix...the plant.” 

“Hey, you never know. If it’s really that important to you, it’s worth trying, right?” 

“Maybe…” Ryou glances down at the plant again, and gently lifts one of the crackling vines. He winces when another flake of dried leaf flutters off, and one of the few remaining buds thuds onto the floor and rolls under the dashboard. “Poor thing didn’t deserve to get stuck with me. Hopefully the Olkari can let it limp on a little longer. Or maybe they can just take it off my hands.”

“Or…” Shiro pauses thoughtfully. Ryou can just faintly feel little threads of hesitation and consideration, like he’s thinking hard on something. But whatever those thoughts are, he’s trying to suppress them enough that Ryou can’t pick it up easily. “Or you could learn how to help it yourself.”

Ryou blinks at that. “Hmm?”

“The Olkari could probably teach you how to take care of it better, right? Then you could do it on your own.”

It’s on the tip of Ryou’s tongue to argue how ridiculous that suggestion is. He doesn’t know a damn thing about plants. Neither does Shiro. All he’s done so far is slowly kill off the dream ivy. What could possibly change about that? 

But he hesitates, thoughtful. It’s true neither of them really know anything about how to take care of plants at all, but then, neither of them have really tried either. He certainly hasn’t, ever since he was created. 

And Shiro? Ryou has hazy memories of houseplants or gifted bamboo and tiny cacti here and there in Shiro’s history, but Shiro had never really cared one way or the other about them. He’d been too busy pursuing his dreams of being a pilot and had never had time to really take care of one. They’d usually ended up regifted to people who had more time for them. 

So maybe Shiro’s never done this before, and maybe he doesn’t have the experience to pass on. That doesn’t mean Ryou wouldn’t be able to figure it out, if somebody could teach him. And it would be a unique skill to him...exactly the sort of thing he’s been trying to find, ever since the incident with the Vogn not too long ago. 

“Maybe,” Ryou says, considering. “If they could help me figure out what’s wrong with it, at least…”

Sensing his thoughts—probably entirely literally, with the Black Lion’s mental link—Shiro nods to the plant. “What have you got to lose? You probably can’t do worse than this.”

“Gee, thanks,” Ryou says, deadpan. “You’re very encouraging today.”

But Shiro isn’t wrong, either. What’s the harm in trying? The dream ivy is already dying. He can at least give it his all to try and make it better.

“If you don’t need me for the supply run…”

Shiro shakes his head. “We’re covered. I was planning to give everyone a day off of training, anyway. Barring emergencies, the time is yours.”

Ryou runs his right thumb along the edge of the planter, over the smooth amber resin. “Alright, then. I’ll swing by tomorrow and see if Ryner can help me out with this.” 

Now he just has to hope Olkari can work miracles. Because as far as he can tell, it’s all that’s going to save the poor plant.

* * *

 

“This one has seen better quintents,” Ryner muses, as she studies the dream ivy thoughtfully. 

Ryner had been more than agreeable when Ryou had called to ask for help with a plant-related problem, once they had landed on Olkarion. She was always busy these days with her many duties, and could easily have justified passing Ryou’s comparatively minor problem off to a lesser vinespeaker. But she considered Ryou a personal friend, after working with him so closely on both of his prosthetic arms, as well as a great deal of the second Olkari attack and restoration. So when he called, she’d offered to attend to the matter personally. 

Ryou still feels a little sheepish and stupid presenting Ryner with such a simple problem...and maybe a little guilty too, like a bad pet owner. Or plant owner, as the case may be. But if anyone could teach him how to fix this, it would be Ryner. So he’ll swallow his pride and listen to what she has to say.

“Is it salvagable?” he asks. 

Ryner gently runs her three-fingered hands over the crumpled vines of the dream ivy, so carefully that not a bit flakes off or crackles at her touch. She closes her eyes for a moment, almost as though she is listening, before saying, “Perhaps. This is  _ Zix’na’vess,  _ is it not? From Xa’tix?”

“Yes,” Ryou says, surprised. “How did you know?”

Ryner smiles as she opens her eyes. “The gardens of Xa’tix are famous for their beauty. The Zenatixx understand the unity and harmony between nature and civilization perhaps even better than the Olkari, though on a more instinctive level than a mathematical one.” Her smile grows more amused. “Also, I asked its name of it.”

Ryou blinks. “You talked to the ivy?”

“In a manner of speaking. They don’t use words, but the nanocellulose of this plant is structurally different than those of any of the plants on Olkarion, just like a different face or name. I have read of the fabled dream ivy enough to recognize it...though I have never had the honor of seeing it in person before.” 

“I’m sorry your first chance is with a dream ivy I managed to almost kill,” Ryou says, with an apologetic look towards the plant in question.

“The Zenatixx do not part with their beloved plants easily,” Ryner says. “I can’t imagine for a tick that you did this intentionally. They must have trusted you, as do the Olkari.” 

Ryou figures this was probably a terrible idea, but doesn’t voice his thoughts out loud.

Ryner places her palm carefully over the center of the ivy, and the browned and crackling shoots glow faintly with little green veins as she uses her powers. Ryou’s not sure exactly what she does, but the plant seems to shrink on itself. When her palm comes away a moment later, there’s a little more pale gold at the center of the swirl of vines than before, and a little less wilted brown. 

“I think this little one can still be saved,” Ryner says after a moment. “I will need to help it gain a little strength, of course, but the fight hasn’t left it yet.”

“That’s a relief,” Ryou says with a sigh. “I didn’t want to kill off a peace offering by accident.”

Ryner nods in agreement. “I will teach you how to listen to the ivy as well, to avoid doing so in the future.”

Ryou blinks at that. “Listen to it? Uh, Ryner...I know you outfitted me with your own tech—” he waves the Olkari arm in question once, “—but I still can’t actually use any of your powers. I’ve never even been able to use your control halos.” 

Ryner laughs. “Certainly my abilities help,” she agrees, “but I speak more generally of observing what the  _ Zix’na’vess  _ requires. You, me, the dream ivy...we are all made of the same essence. It is only a matter of understanding each other and what we each need. I will show you.”

And she does, as she gently runs her fingers over each of the little ivy vines one at a time, emitting a soft green glow from her fingers. Wherever her fingers touch, the crackling brown leaves seem to grow a little brighter and a little stronger. 

“This,” she explains as she works, “is an indication of a lack of moisture.”

“I thought that too,” Ryou says, frowning. “But when I tried watering it, it just made things worse.” 

Ryner nods. “You read the  _ Zix’na’vess’s  _ concerns correctly, but this was not the right solution. The soil moisture is not the problem—too much can even cause the roots to begin rotting. It is the air moisture that causes it to suffer.”

“What do you mean?”

“The planet the dream ivy hails from has more moisture in the air, doesn’t it?” Ryner says. “But then it was moved from its home to a ship with regulated temperatures and humidities. I suspect the Castle of Lions is too dry for it by comparison.”

Now that she mentions it, Ryou realizes she’s right. Xa’tix hadn’t been humid, but it had been moderately tropical. The Castle of Lions, on the other hand, always maintains the same core temperature and air regulations for the safety of its passengers. A sensitive plant might very well feel the difference.

“This should be easy enough to fix,” Ryner adds, as she works on the plant more. “Misting the leaves more often and watering the soil less regularly will keep it from rotting and help with moisture.” 

“That simple?” Ryou asks, surprised.

“There are other things as well,” Ryner says, still gently adjusting the leaves with faint green glows of energy. “The  _ Zix’na’vess _ misses its home. It weakens because of it.”

“You’re telling me my plant is dying of  _ homesickness?”  _ Ryou asks, disbelieving.

Ryner seems amused by his confusion. “Not in the same way you or I might feel, when separated from our own planets,” she says. “But in its own way, as plants miss their own homes. They are designed by nature to survive in one environment. Leaving it can be difficult, even fatal, if it cannot adapt.

“But little things will help it become stronger again. A light source that replicates the light of the sun of Xa’tix. Mixing a few drops of  _ thaya  _ honey into the soil and misting waters, like the nectars so common on its homeworld. Give a piece of Xa’tix to it, and it will not wither when so far from home.” 

It sounds a little strange, but at the same time, Ryou supposes that makes sense. The plant  _ has  _ evolved for the delicate ecosystem of Xa’tix; the abrupt move to the Castle of Lions had probably been jarring on the poor thing. Between that and the poor care—however well intentioned Ryou’s attempts might have been—it’s a wonder the dream ivy is even still alive.

“There,” Ryner says, interrupting his thoughts. She pulls her hand away from the amber resin pot and regards the plant with satisfaction. “I’ve helped it repair itself and restructured a few of its weaker vines. With proper care, it should be able to fully recover.” 

She really has worked a miracle. The dream ivy hasn’t quite regained its lustrous golden sheen that it first had, but its vines are no longer brown and cracking either. It’s still a paler gold than it should be, and the edges of the leaves are still rimmed with dried brown splotches. None of the buds in the leaves have started to grow back yet. But it  _ looks  _ like it has a fighting chance now, when a varga ago it had been dying.

“Thank you,” Ryou says, relieved. “You did a really good job with that.”

“I only helped it along,” Ryner says. “It has a will to survive of its own; it just needs a little extra help. With yours, it should be healed in full in no time at all. And when it is, I should like to see it as it is meant to be seen. Very few people in their lifetimes have ever had an opportunity to see the rare and precious  _ Zix’na’vess.”  _

“Assuming I don’t kill it off by accident, I’d be happy to show you.”

“You won’t kill it,” Ryner says, confident. “You know what to listen for, now.”

“Only thanks to you. But I promise I’ll make good use of the things you taught me today.” 

“It has been my pleasure to assist,” Ryner says, smiling. “And by all means—do feel free to ask for help again if there are still difficulties. I am more than happy to interpret further, if the dream ivy still has more to say.”

Ryou privately hopes it doesn’t come to that. It’s already one thing to hang up his pride and come to Ryner the first time. If he screws up taking care of the plant a  _ second  _ time, after all the advice she gave him...well, he probably doesn’t deserve the dream ivy at all then.

But he’s not going to let that happen this time. Now that he has even a faint idea of the sorts of things the dream ivy really needs, he’s going to do his best to take care of it properly. 

Learn to listen to it. Give it a peace of home. 

He’s pretty sure he can manage  _ that  _ much, at least.

* * *

 

Armed with his newfound knowledge, Ryou sets to work making his room a little more habitable for the dream ivy.

With a little help from Hunk and Pidge, he’s able to rig a special lamp over the chest in his room that emits the same sort of light common on Xa’tix. It casts the same reddish-orange light as the sun of its home planet. He turns it on every morning when he wakes up, right after he takes his daily dormancy pill, and he turns it off every night before bed. In no time it becomes part of his daily routine.

He adjusts the watering schedule, too. Coran is able to dig up the Altean equivalent of a spray-bottle from somewhere in the Castle’s stores at Ryou’s request. Ryou keeps it filled with clean water, and keeps a small jar of space-honeys or nectars on the chest as well. He’s careful to mist the dream ivy every other quintent or so with the diluted honey-water mix, and waters it once a spicolian movement.

He’s not sure if he’s doing anything right, at first. Maybe he’s not misting enough, or still watering too frequently. Maybe he’s using the lamp too much. But he keeps a careful eye on the dream ivy, observing as Ryner had taught him, to see if it’s having any effect—or if it’s having  _ too  _ much effect and he needs to change the frequency.

He needn’t have worried. Ryner’s advice had been sound. After a few quintents the remaining dried out splotches on the dream ivy begin to shrink, and by the end of the first spicolian movement they’ve disappeared completely. The vines are still a pale and waxy, but it’s clearly on the mend.

More confident in his routine now, Ryou keeps up the pattern. It’s surprisingly relaxing, in its own way, something comfortable and calming to look forward to even if it doesn’t take up that much time in his day. It feels nice to know what to do, and to know that he’s cultivating and strengthening, rather than destroying. Maybe  _ this  _ is what the lore about  _ Zix’na’vess  _ meant, when it was supposed to encourage peace and tranquility.

After another spicolian movement, the plant’s color is more vibrant, and by the end of the third, that lustrous sheen it had originally been gifted to him with has returned. The tiny beginnings of new little buds begin to form at the end of the clusters of vines, and new sprouts begin to tentatively crawl their way from the center of the plant as well. It’s not just recovering; it’s  _ growing.  _

It’s probably an inconsequential thing to take pleasure from, but even so, Ryou is surprisingly proud of himself for pulling the plant back from the brink. Sure, Ryner had gotten it started, but Ryou had kept it up. He’d saved something,  _ healed  _ something, even if it was just a plant. Seeing it recover and get stronger felt good.  _ He  _ felt good about it. 

But the real crowning moment of glory is when, a spicolian movement later, the first of those little buds tentatively opens up to reveal a flower. It’s little and silver-white, like a tiny star at the end of a golden chain. 

Ryou still doesn’t know much about plants or flowers, and can’t remember all that many, but he still thinks this is the prettiest one he’s ever seen. And it happened because the plant was comfortable and healthy enough under his care to produce those flowers to begin with. It’s almost like the ivy is telling him he did a good job. 

It’s a silly thing to be excited about, but Ryou can’t help but be delighted by it anyway. 

Within another week the majority of the plant is covered in dozens of those same little silver-white star flowers. And that’s when Ryou makes his next surprising discovery about the plant. Because the dream ivy actually has a secret of its own, that it reveals when it’s in full bloom: scent. 

The flowers release a soft perfume, not enough to be overpowering, but just enough to be comfortably aware of it. And Ryou finds it has a strangely calming effect, when he’s in its presence. Even after a bad day—a mission gone poorly, a failure against the the Gladiator, bickering amongst the team—when he returns to his room and the dream ivy, things just  _ feel  _ a little better.

It even works, to some degree, with nightmares. Whenever Ryou wakes after a bad dream, the perfume is almost immediately in his senses. It’s soothing and subtle, as if the dream ivy is reminding him it’s not real. It doesn’t work all of the time, but it does help make those experiences at least a little less painful. Ryou gets into the habit of putting the plant on his nightstand at night, close at hand, just in case.

The scent gets stronger when the plant is interacted with, too. After a particularly bad day or nasty dream, Ryou more and more often finds himself rubbing one of the soft, soothing leaves between his fingers, and the scent actually grows stronger. It’s as though the plant is doing its best to comfort him.

He’s starting to see where it gets its name, and what the lore is  _ really  _ about. Maybe, when it gets big enough, he’ll give Shiro a cutting of it, too.

At first he wonders if it’s just him. He’s invested quite a lot of time and care into the plant; maybe he’s just over-reacting. But if anyone ever needs to stop by his room to chat, they noticeably relax as well. It’s enough that he eventually brings it up with Coran, who runs a few tests on the plant out of curiosity.

The results are genuinely surprising. “The perfume this dream ivy emits has an effect on not just mood, but quintessence,” Coran says, with raised eyebrows. “It looks like it promotes chemical and quintessal balance in a body that encourages better health and mood, and less aggression.” 

“All that from a smell?” Ryou asks, incredulous.

“It’s not the strangest thing I’ve ever heard of,” Coran says. “I’ve read about plants that have the opposite effect as well. I can see why the Zenatixx value it so highly, and want to protect it so much. Not only does it promote non-aggression and healing, but if the Galra got their hands on this, I’m sure they could use its properties very dangerously.” 

Ryou believes it. The Galra are so obsessed with quintessence that anything that could manipulate it in any way, even positively and non-invasively, would be of great interest to them. And the Galra would have no qualms about destroying it completely, if it benefited them in some way. Nor would it bother them to take it and replicate it with their own darker purposes. Ryou himself is living proof of that.

“Well, we won’t let them get it,” Ryou says firmly. “The Zenatixx will keep their peace, and the dream ivy will stay out of Galra hands.” 

“That’s the old paladin spirit,” Coran says approvingly. 

And it does. Xa’tix remains safe and protected thanks to Voltron. Its people remain peaceful. Ryou still spends many of his quintents fighting, and he does so willingly and with everything he has. But at the end of a long fight, no matter what he’s done or what happened to others, there’s still a little reminder of peace and tranquility waiting back home for him. 

Just as the Zenatixx had intended.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As a side note, this fic is kind of set during other fics that will be coming after _Familiar Faces._ Since time is stretched out in this one so much, just assume that while other stuff is happening in (as of yet, unposted) fics, Ryou's also learning about plants.


	2. Chapter 2

Time passes, and life as a paladin of Voltron continues. The paladins deal with more than a few difficult battles, but they always manage to pull through. 

Ryou finds himself away from his room for more than a few quintents, sometimes. Sometimes it’s due to difficult combat situations, or sometimes he’s injured badly enough that he’s forced to stay in a pod for longer than he’d like. Sometimes he’s kept away from the Castle of Lions for several quintents in a row when dealing with diplomatic duties. 

But the dream ivy still needs care regardless, so Ryou ends up enlisting Hunk to be the plant’s back-up caretaker. Hunk isn’t incredibly knowledgeable about plants, but he does know how to mix portions and maintain engineering fixtures. As long as Ryou leaves instructions for how much to water or how many vargas a day to leave the specialized lighting fixture on, Hunk can take care of it. 

Hunk doesn’t let him down. The dream ivy is as healthy as always whenever Ryou comes back after an absence. So Ryou isn’t terribly worried when the longest job he’s had away from the Castle since getting the dream ivy comes up. 

One of the recently joined planets in the coalition requests assistance getting their armies up to code, with revisions of military strategy and combat efficiency. There’s also an expectation for inspiring speeches and reminders of what it means to be a part of the Voltron coalition to go right along with it. Shiro would be ideal for the task as the head of Voltron, but Voltron is also necessary for a mission in another quadrant entirely. Fortunately, Ryou is also well suited for the task, between Shiro’s skillsets that he still has, and his own not inconsiderable diplomatic expertise. 

Ryou is more than able and willing to handle the task. He likes having ways to be useful. But it does mean he’ll be gone for a full spicolian movement. 

It shouldn’t be a problem, in the long run. The planet is safe, and Ryou plans accordingly in advance, making sure he has enough of his medication in addition to mission-specific equipment. And while he’s planning, he makes sure to ask Hunk to take care of his dream ivy again, just to be sure it’ll be okay while he’s away.

A full spicolian movement later Ryou returns home to the Castle of Lions, exhausted but satisfied with the progress of their allies. He gives his report to Shiro and gets news of the mission with Voltron in return. Everyone is safe and alive, which is a relief.

Ryou’s dream ivy is safe and alive too, when he finally gets back to his room, vargas after getting home and catching up with everyone. Hunk had come through with flying colors. The ivy’s golden sheen is as healthy as always, and the silver-white star flowers are still blooming. The gentle perfume the plant emits is like a welcome home greeting, and Ryou relaxes.

Then he stops relaxing, in favor of confusion. His dream ivy isn’t alone anymore. There’s a smaller potted plant settled gently next to the ivy, partially surrounded by some of the ivy’s long vines. 

Ryou gives it a perplexed once-over as he crouches down to see it at eye-level. The plant is the same color as the dream ivy, minus the lustrous sheen, and made up of thick, stubby, squishy-looking fat leaves. 

His first confused, sleep-deprived thought is that somehow his dream ivy has managed to produce a baby dream ivy while he was away. Actual logic catches up with his thoughts a moment later, when he realizes how absolutely stupid that is. 

He blames fatigue, mostly because he can’t blame Shiro, who never would have encountered this situation before. Apparently there are downsides to being unique.

“How would it pot itself, anyway?” he mutters. “Somebody probably left this here for some reason.” 

When he reaches out to run his left fingers gently over the new plant, stroking one of the oddly fuzzy stubby leaves, it immediately shifts into a blue-green color. Ryou blinks in surprise...and a second later, smiles in recognition. He’s seen this before! When Lance and Hunk had convinced him to sneak out to the space mall feebs ago, there had been a stand there selling miniature color-changing succulents. 

“That probably explains where you came from, then,” Ryou tells the plant idly. Which is also a little silly. He must be very tired, to be talking to the plants. “Trying to blend in with the locals, huh? I get that.” 

The succulent doesn’t answer. Obviously. But it does slowly start to melt back to golden-yellow, the moment he stops touching it. Ryou lets it be, more than a little perplexed at how easy it is for him to relate to a little chameleon-plant.

Ryou pulls Hunk and Lance aside the next morning at breakfast, once he’s had a decent night’s rest, and holds the little succulent (today a brilliant red) up in his Olkari palm. “All right,” he says. “Which one of you is responsible for this?”

“It wasn’t me,” Hunk says immediately. “I just watered your plant, that’s all!”

But Lance grins. “I was hanging out with Hunk when he was taking care of the big gold plant in your room,” he says. “And it looked lonely, so I got it a friend for you. Nice, right? I remember you watching them before when we went to the space mall.” 

Ryou doesn’t really know what to say to that. He doesn’t think he’d shown any particular extra interest in the miniature succulents, any more than he had any of the other strange things at the space mall. And he doesn’t really  _ need  _ another plant. 

But Lance seems so pleased with his little gift...and the succulent  _ has  _ kind of grown on him, with its habit of matching colors with whatever its closest to, if left to its own devices. It would be rude to get rid of a present, and it wouldn’t be the plant’s fault.

So Ryou becomes the owner of a second plant, much to his bemusement. 

He hadn’t exactly intended on it, but once he resolves to take care of it, he puts what Ryner taught him to use. The succulent’s needs are different than the dream ivy’s, he discovers with some careful observation. It seems to like the sun lamp the dream ivy uses, so it can in fact ‘keep the dream ivy from getting lonely’ on the same clothes chest as Lance had suggested. But it doesn’t seem to like being misted as much, and does better when he soaks the roots and then lets it dry out every few quintents. It changes to darker colors when it needs water, Ryou discovers, so he has an easy visual cue when it needs attention. 

It takes a little bit, but soon the succulent is just as much a part of his regular daily routine as the dream ivy. He starts to enjoy taking care of it, too, even if it’s a very different sort of plant altogether.

And of course, as Lance had said, when he has to leave for quintents at a time, the dream ivy isn’t lonely anymore. 

* * *

Ryou’s first real foray of his own accord into the unexpected hobby he’d sort of fallen into happens during a long stretch of time far away from civilization.

“It just isn’t the same,” Hunk mutters, as he opens a container of processed spices and stares at the powder inside forlornly. 

Ryou can’t help but agree, as he dices several withered, dried root vegetables while he helps Hunk with dinner. Unfortunately, there’s not much they can do about it. Between deep space travel and ventures to uninhabited planets and solar systems for resources, they haven’t been able to stop by a market for fresh produce in quintents. They’re stuck with whatever food stores they have on hand.

“It beats food goo,” he offers consolingly. 

“Almost everything beats food goo,” Hunk complains. “I miss  _ fresh  _ food. We’re in the middle of space! There’s like a  _ billion  _ planets out here with amazing foods, and we’ve got to make do with this processed stuff. Even a few fresh herbs could enhance the flavor, but  _ no,  _ of course we can’t have  _ that. _ ” He sighs and scoops out a spoonful of powder. “What good’s being a paladin of Voltron anyway?”

“I’m pretty sure food wasn’t an intended perk of being a paladin,” Ryou says, smiling a little. “Or have you forgotten the paladin lunch?”

Hunk goes a little green. “I  _ had  _ forgotten it, thank you very much for bringing it back. I could have gone my entire life without remembering that again.”

“Hey, you got lucky. At least Coran didn’t try to force feed it to  _ you. _ ”

“He didn’t to you either! And how do you remember that, anyway?”

“Some things are so terrible they transcend even enforced memory copies and artificial brain-damaging diseases,” Ryou says mildly. “That is unfortunately one of those things.” 

Hunk groans in sympathy. “Okay, you win. This stuff is still better than... _ that.  _ Even food goo is better than that.” He caps the jar. “But I still miss fresh food.” 

So does Ryou, but that actually gives him an idea. 

He can’t enact it until the next time they get to civilization, but that gives Ryou plenty of time to plan out his project. By the time they get to a decent market again, Ryou has a general idea of what he needs. So he’s able to duck aside to make his own purchases, in the middle of helping Hunk with their food shopping at the farmer’s market they happen to come across. Nobody notices his own bundle in the middle of all the others, and he’s able to take it away to his room without anyone catching him, especially Hunk.

It’s not a  _ secret  _ exactly. But it would be kind of nice to make it a surprise. Or, if his idea goes  _ horribly  _ wrong, to not have anyone’s expectations up.

After all, he’s never actually planted anything on his own before. 

But he’d talked to the merchant at the farmer’s market when he’d made his selections, and he has a pretty good idea of what to do. So he sets out six little pots on his clothes chest, on a large tray for drainage. He fills them all with a soft, nutrient-rich soil, and plants the seeds for six different kinds of herbs in each one. Each pot gets a careful watering job, not enough to drown them,  _ just  _ enough to stay comfortably healthy. Ryou’s gotten better at estimating exactly what that is, with a lot of practice.

When he’s done, he crosses his arms, stands back, and surveys his handiwork. The surface of the chest is getting a little crowded now, between the tray, the succulent, and the dream ivy—the last of which has been getting larger, with its vines starting to take over more of the surface around it. But it’s just enough for his new project, and since they all need the sun lamp, they all need to be here.

Hopefully it will do. Now all he can do is wait.

It takes about a spicolian movement before the first of the little shoots starts to poke through the soil, but when he does spot the first of them while misting the dream ivy in the morning, he breaks into a smile. It was working! In a little while they’ll be big enough to use while cooking, and then they’ll always have something fresh on hand, even in deep space or on inhospitable planets. Ryou had been careful to get a variety too, so there would be options for flavors down the line. 

More confident with his little project now, Ryou enjoys watching the little shoots grow into larger, fuller herbs. It’s actually impressive, how fast something so little can get so much bigger. Soon enough they’re big enough to start cutting, which means all Ryou needs now is an opportunity.

He gets it soon enough, during another stretch when Voltron has been running non-stop, and there’s just been no time to do any additional shopping. Once again, Hunk complains as he rifles through the pantry and the icebox for something they can use to make a decent meal that still  _ tastes  _ good, and he grumbles as he reaches for the flavoring powders.

“Hold that thought,” Ryou says. “Give me a tick.”

Hunk does, bemused. When Ryou returns to the kitchen seven doboshes later with a small handful of fresh kemene—a space herb with similar properties to parsley, or so he’s told—Hunk’s eyes widen. “Where did you get  _ that?”  _

“I’ve been growing it,” Ryou says, with a faint touch of pride, as he hands it over to Hunk.

“Really?” Hunk sniffs the kemene appreciatively. “It’s really fresh, too. I had no idea you were doing this!”

“You haven’t had to take care of the other two plants for a while,” Ryou says, which is true. He hasn’t been on long-term diplomatic missions recently, or gotten injured in the line of duty.

“That’s true. I wouldn’t have thought of this though. Where’d you get the idea?”

“You gave it to me, honestly,” Ryou admits. “The last time we were stuck in deep space for a while and you missed fresh food. It’s just a few herbs, but like you said...even those can add some flavor.”

“These will  _ definitely  _ improve things,” Hunk agrees, setting the kemene down on the cutting board. “What else did you grow?”

Ryou fills him in as he assists with dinner. Hunk is a good listener when it comes to all things food, and this is food-adjacent, so he’s certainly appreciative of Ryou’s efforts. It feels nice, to know he’d actually made something of his little unexpected hobby that others could appreciate, too. 

Dinner isn’t half bad, either, despite the lack of mostly fresh ingredients. The kemene adds a little flavor that’s just enough to help. Hunk thanks him for the surprise...and then asks him something Ryou hadn’t even considered.

“Think you could do that with fresh veggies, too?”

Ryou blinks. “Um. I suppose I could try.” He considers the state of his clothes-chest-turned-growing-table, now thoroughly overrun with herbs, one cameleon-succulent, and an increasingly large dream ivy, and adds firmly, “But I think I’m going to need a  _ lot  _ more space, first.” 

* * *

 

“You’re lucky you came to me! I have just the place in mind,” Coran says, delighted, as he leads Ryou through the halls of the Castle of Lions.

“I’ve never been to this part of the Castle before,” Ryou observes, intrigued, as he looks around at the unfamiliar halls. At least, he  _ thinks  _ he’s never been here before. There’s always the possibility he wandered here by accident, when he was sick. Supposedly he’d gotten into more than a few perplexing places during his illness. But if he can’t actually remember it, it doesn’t count, as far as he’s concerned.

This place isn’t too far off from the main halls and rooms they usually use, though. It’s two floors lower, slightly off the beaten track, but not a long trek by any means. Whatever Coran has in mind, it should be easy enough to get to on a regular basis.

Ryou had pondered Hunk’s question for a quintent before finally deciding to check with the Alteans on finding some space to grow more things. Taking care of his own plants in his room, or growing a few herbs for the hell of it, is one thing. Growing any kind of produce is just not something he can feasibly do in his room. 

Coran knew the Castle of Lions inside and out, though; he would tell anyone who’d listen how his grandfather built it. He’d been delighted when Ryou had asked if there was any place on the ship he could try growing a few things in his spare time. 

“Here we are,” Coran says, as he throws open the doors at the end of the hallway. “The Castle’s royal courtyards! I think you’ll find the accommodations suitable to your needs.”

Ryou’s jaw drops as he steps into the room. It’s big, much bigger than anticipated, perfectly round with several metal paths carving out plots of land for growing things. There’s some kind of fountain in the center, currently non-functional. The ceiling overhead has the same holographic sky that’s used in Kaltenecker’s room, cleverly disguising what appears to be some kind of pipe system for watering and panels for lighting. 

Everything looks relatively well kept, for a ten thousand year old castle. Coran has obviously swept through the place once or twice, cleaning it up and keeping it tidy. It might have been pretty, once, or peaceful, or relaxing. Now it just looks empty, forlorn, and very, very big.

“Coran,” Ryou says, a little weakly, “When I said I needed a space to grow a few things, I meant like...a spare room. Not...not all  _ this.” _

“Nonsense,” Coran says, folding his hands smartly behind his back. “These are the royal gardens. There should be life in them again.” His expression turns a little wistful as he regards the clean but far too empty looking room. “Back in the day, these gardens thrived under the care of the palace gardeners. Even in the depths of space, even after a terrible battle, they had so much life and tranquility. They were the pride and joy of of Queen Melenor...Allura’s mother.”

Ryou finds that more intimidating than anything else. That is a hell of a lot to live up to. 

“I’m not a palace gardener, Coran,” he says carefully. “I’m not even really sure what I’m doing with this. I’m just trying to grow a few fresh vegetables and figuring it out as I go.” 

“That’s quite all right,” Coran says, brushing a hand over his mustache. “I imagine Queen Melenor would approve of the room seeing any use again at all. Maybe you’ll use it differently, but it will still be good to see life in here again.” The wistful look vanishes, replaced by enthusiasm. “Let me show you its features! This room is specially designed to support all kinds of plant life, even in the depths of space.” 

Ryou’s absolutely positive he won’t even come  _ close  _ to living up to the legacy of the previous caretakers of the room. But he will admit, as Coran gives him the tour, it  _ is  _ a perfectly suited room to exactly his needs. The lighting fixtures need to be repaired, but are designed to adapt to match any kind of lighting, regardless of the type or intensity of light needed. Watering fixtures throughout the room can be adjusted based on types of liquids needed, and timers can be set to water based on any plant’s individual requirements. The empty plots all around the room still need soil, but they’re deep enough for intricate root systems, and already set up for proper drainage. 

It won’t be _pretty_ or _awe-inspiring_ like he figures palace gardens and courtyards are supposed to look _._ Not by a long shot. But Ryou can at least make it functional, and he has a place to experiment. It’s a start.

“Thanks, Coran,” Ryou says, as the tour finally comes to an end. “This is pretty nice. It might take me a bit to get things growing, but once I do, this’ll be perfect.”

Coran beams at him. “Of course! Any time. And if I might make a suggestion…soyaberries are juicy and sweet, and go excellently in many baked goods.”

Ryou laughs. “I’ll add it to the list. And you get to try the first one.” 

Coran’s smile grows wider. “I’ll hold you to that! A paladin can’t break his promises.”

“Duly noted,” Ryou says, as he surveys his new gardening room. 

There’s quite a lot to get done, but even so, he’s actually looking forward to getting started.

* * *

 

As expected, it does take a little while to get things moving. For starters, the gardens need to be properly set up for supporting plant life, and the right tools need to be found.

The tools are fairly easy. Coran finds a small cabinet of the Altean equivalents of shovels, trowels, rakes, clippers, and half a dozen other odds and ends that probably be of use at some point. He moves the cabinet up to a corner of the gardens, so Ryou has easy access to anything he needs.

Getting the gardens set up is a little harder. Everything is still pre-set for Altean plant-life, from the type of lighting to the watering systems, and based on what Ryou’s seen Altea had some  _ strange  _ weather cycles. 

The water pressure on one watering system is enough to knock a man out, which Ryou had nearly experienced first hand. He’d managed to dodge the jetstream, barely, and thankfully had avoided explaining to the rest of the team how he’d managed to get a concussion  _ gardening. _ The phenomenon is, according to Coran, to simulate the falling rocks that had been common on some parts of the planet, for hardy varieties of plants that needed occasional culling. Ryou is frankly alarmed by the story. 

The ten-thousand year old settings won’t do for most varieties of plants that Ryou wants to try his hand at. Fortunately, while he doesn’t have the faintest idea how to go about messing with Altean technology, he does know a couple people who can.

“Every time I think I’ve seen everything the Castle of Lions has to offer, I’m proven wrong,” Pidge says, with an almost dreamy sigh, as she balances on a hovering seat twenty feet in the air and toys with one of the lighting panels. Her eyes are practically gleaming, and Ryou’s not entirely certain it’s because of the reflection of the lights. “The sheer  _ elegance  _ of the Altean technology in virtually all fields is simply beautiful.”

“Do we need to give you two a moment?” Matt calls up to her, grinning a little. 

“I could spend  _ vargas  _ studying this technology. I might just. Do you know how much the Garrison would kill for this? It would make colonizing planets and sustaining life outside Earth  _ so  _ much easier. It’s incredible.”

“They’ll be announcing their engagement any day now,” Matt stage whispers to Ryou, still grinning. Ryou snorts.

Pidge rolls her eyes and glares down at her brother. “Oh, go back to your bags of dirt.”

“But they’re  _ heavy,”  _ Matt complains, if good-naturedly. “And I’ve got noodle arms. I’m the team smart guy. Ryou can probably handle them all. He’s got all Shiro’s muscles.”

“I don’t have  _ all  _ of them,” Ryou says. “And one of my arms isn’t even real. Besides, you never had noodle arms. You had to pass the physical examinations to go to Kerberos just like Shiro did, and you’ve only gotten stronger since with the rebels.”

“Too bad, Matt,” Pidge calls from the ceiling. “You’ve gotten demoted to intelligent muscle. I’m the team smart girl now. Have fun with the bags of dirt.” 

Matt shakes his head at her, but his smile is fond as he hefts of the large sacks of soil from a hover-cart over to the plot Ryou had designated for the vegetable garden. Ryou follows with a second over his shoulder.

In truth, Matt actually  _ had  _ been helping with technological things as well earlier, but his task had been simpler. Adjusting the watering system and setting it up for easier control on Ryou’s part had taken much less time than repairing and updating the lighting fixtures and tech associated with it. 

So he’d offered to help with some of the other setup tasks after, even if they didn’t involve messing around with computers or complex algorithms. And as it happened, there was one task that would be made a lot easier with a little extra help.

Ryou had needed to buy decent soil and fertilizer to work with, since the Castle of Lions obviously had no natural earth to plant in. Ryou had purchased a pallet’s worth of soil in fifty-pound bags to fill in one of the plots in the courtyard, with Coran signing off on the order. He’d hauled it up on a hover-cart to the courtyard itself, too. But slicing open each bag and spreading the contents around the single plot promised to be dirty and tiring work, and it had turned out to be exactly that. 

“You really don’t have to do this, you know,” Ryou says, as he sets his latest bag down and slices it open with a work knife that Matt hands him. “You already helped me out plenty, getting the watering systems online, and a screen interface set up that  _ isn’t  _ in Altean.”

“Nah,” Matt says, as he nudges his own bag of soil over with one foot and carefully starts to shake the contents out into the assigned gardening plot. “Me and Pidge kid, but honestly, this is kind of nice. Reminds me a little of home.” 

Ryou raises an eyebrow as he starts to empty his own bag. “It does? Did you guys garden? I don’t remember that, but...” It was always difficult to figure out if he’d lost a memory Shiro had, or if it was never there to begin with.

Pidge snorts up above, as she pulls her hover-seat farther along the panel she’s working on. “Me? Garden? That’s a good joke.”

Matt shoots her an amused smile, then glances back to Ryou. “No, you’re not forgetting anything. I never did any gardening. But our mom  _ loves  _ plants. There was a big garden out back at our house. Sometimes we’d get stuck weeding or picking stuff as chores and that kind of stunk—”

“—it was  _ punishment,”  _ Pidge interjects above, disgusted. “Actual torture. That blueberry bush was the  _ worst.”  _

“—but there was also fresh fruits and veggies in the summer and fall, so that was always nice,” Matt concludes, ignoring his sister. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, Garrison genetically engineered freeze-dried peas aren’t bad, all things considered. But you do kind of get spoiled by fresh stuff. Even Pidge.”

Pidge mumbles up above, but after a moment says grudgingly, “The fresh snap peas and tomatoes  _ were  _ pretty nice, I guess.” 

_ “Hah,”  _ Matt crows, pointing up at her victoriously. “I knew it!” 

Ryou can’t help but smile as he watches the two of them playfully tease each other. “I’m afraid I can’t do snap peas or tomatoes,” he admits after a moment. “All I’ve got are space-vegetables.” Technically speaking, he’s never even seen, much less eaten, either of those other things.

“Maybe,” Matt says. “But fresh space-veggies are still better than nothing. It’ll still be cool to see’em grow. You’ll have to let us know when you finally get something.”

“As long as we don’t have to weed it,” Pidge concludes, with a scowl.  _ “There!”  _ she adds, a moment later. “I fixed the problem with the light frequencies. It should actually change now, instead of being stuck with Altean sunlight. And I’ve fixed it so it’ll use the kind of light you asked for, too—it can even be different plot by plot. You can control it all from the same pad Matt already set up.” 

She demonstrates by pushing away from the panels and lowering herself back to the floor, then heading over to the panel set into the wall near the door. She taps a few keys, and the lights over the half-filled plot adjust to a light orange glow, warm and comfortable.

“Thank you both,” Ryou says, grinning. “Planting on a planet would be one thing, but doing it on a spaceship that’s constantly moving from system to system is tricky. This is a huge help.” 

“No problem,” Pidge says. “Happy to help.”

“Happy enough to also help move bags of dirt?” Matt asks teasingly.

“Nope,” Pidge says. “I’m right out of time. Shiro’s got us doing a...training thing. Gotta go take care of that next. Yup. Sorry, can’t stick around to get all dirty and gross in the dirt.” 

Ryou knows full well there is no ‘training thing,’ especially not from Shiro, and merely raises an eyebrow. It has no real effect, since Pidge is already out the door. Ryou shakes his head, amused, and reaches for the next heavy bag of soil from the cart.

* * *

 

Once the technicalities are out of the way, and the soil foundation has been laid and mixed with fertilizer, all that’s left is to plant. 

Ryou’s never tried to grow anything besides the herbs before, so he really has no idea what to pick or what will do well. He buys seeds or sprouts that will handle well in the sun environment Pidge has coded the vegetable plot for, but other than that, he has no real requirements. 

So he gets a little of everything, just to try it all out. If something grows well or it’s popular on the dinner table, he can always get more later. If it fails, it’s a lesson learned for later. He’s sure he can find a way to cook everything he’s obtained for growing, and if not, Hunk definitely can. For now, it’s just a matter of experimentation and learning. 

And Ryou finds that he honestly enjoys the experience. And there’s a lot to discover, too. Because the Castle of Lions has such a controlled environment and decontamination is somewhat automatic whenever anybody enters, the chances for pests to develop are slim. Weeds are rare for the same reason, since stray breezes or stray creatures can’t inadvertently carry problem seeds with them. And the only critters to worry about are the mice, whom Allura has sternly instructed to not nibble on Ryou’s plants. 

So a great deal of the difficulties of growing have been significantly reduced, which lets Ryou focus on simply caring for the plants themselves. He monitors the watering cycles and keeps an eye on the plants so they don’t drown or dry out. When the vines and bushes start getting taller, he’s careful to bind them up with support frames. He finds that some plants almost seem to support others, generating nutrients that make a second plant healthy, and takes note to plant more efficiently in the future.

In what feels like no time at all he’s got a thriving patch of green plant life. Some parts of the garden are filled with short, fat little stems of root vegetables and soft sprigs of surface-growing plants, and he’s even transplanted the tray of herbs from his room to be with the rest of the produce. Farther back, the trellises are already crawling with vine-vegetables and a pair of burgeoning fruit bushes tall enough to comfortably walk through. He even devotes the very back of the plot to some longer grasses for Kaltenecker, at Lance’s request for a special treat for his sort-of pet.

It’s with both pride and a little bit of nerves that he invites Coran to help himself to the first ripe soyaberries, when the bush starts bearing fruit. He’s not sure how it’ll turn out, or if he’s done it properly, but his nerves evaporate the moment Coran pops the first one into his mouth.

“Perfect!” he announces, with a wide smile, as he reaches for another. “Juicy and sweet, just like old times. Aaah, that brings back memories of the time Alfor and I got stranded on a planet for three quintents until the rest of the paladins could pick us up. We’d been trying to go to a swap meet, you see. Had to go incognito—no Lion. And then we had to live on only our wits! Food was scarce, but the berries provided sustenance—” 

The resulting story takes nearly twenty doboshes to get through. But if it can legitimately jog memories like that, Ryou considers it a success anyway.

After that, the fruits and vegetables gradually work their way onto the dinner table. It starts slow, as things are still growing, but over time they can include more and more things in culinary projects. Fresh produce off the vine not a varga beforehand is infinitely nicer than preserved or canned goods, and cooking with them is so much more flavorful. Both Ryou and Hunk enjoy working the garden produce into dishes, and everyone else is more than willing to hoover up the results. 

For a while, Ryou is content enough with that. He phases out some of the less popular plants and replaces them with new ones, if needed, or expands on others. But for a while, at least at first, that’s enough work for him. 

But eventually he starts to notice, while working on the vegetable garden, that the rest of the courtyard just looks so...empty. Barren, even. There’s one little section of life, teeming with fresh smells and bright bursts of color, but the rest of the large room is the same spartan gray and white and glowing blue as the rest of the Castle of Lions. 

And the longer Ryou spends in there, the more that starts to bother him.

“I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to add a  _ little  _ more color,” he muses, thoughtfully, as he eyes the plot next to the vegetables. “Color’s what Voltron’s about anyway, right?” 

So he does. Just little bits of color here and there at first, for one more plot. He takes a stroll through a garden shop or two on his day off and if he sees something that might look nice, he grabs seeds or cuttings to plant or transplant. 

The large dark flowers nearly as big as his head with silver and purple interior swirls remind him of the Black Lion, and they’re some of the first to be purchased. It reminds him of the others, so he builds the rest of the plot around them in amusement. So bright yellow flowers almost like Earth’s own sunflowers are planted next, and vibrant blue ones with petals that twirl in spirals. There are even assortments of inverted plants that have white stems and pretty green petals. Little red flowers on pale orange-red vines that look like trails of fire are last, curling around the other plants in interesting ways. It’s a surprisingly colorful and very full plot by the time he’s done, but he likes it all the same.

There had been dozens of other interesting plants and flowers he hadn’t been able to fit into that particular plot, though. So he figures,  _ one more can’t hurt,  _ and expands to the next plot in the circular gardens, filling it with other colors and shapes and scents. And when that one’s full, he moves to the one next to it. And the one next to that, after.

It’s not really  _ hard,  _ he tells himself. Once the initial planting is done and the plots are coded for their watering cycles and light fixtures, they more or less take care of themselves. Altean technology is efficient enough that Ryou by himself can take care of his unexpected project. So why not? 

There’s probably better ways to go about planting everything, or better ways to landscape, arranging the colors or shapes in some coordinated fashion. If there are, Ryou doesn’t know them. He doesn’t remember any interesting gardens, assuming Shiro ever took note of any to begin with; that had never been his predecessor’s interest. He’s not really sure how he’s  _ supposed  _ to do it. 

But it doesn’t really matter. Because at the end of the day he’s enjoying himself, and he likes the way it looks to him, and that’s all that really matters.

Even with all his hard work and effort, the courtyards are still a little  _ too  _ big for one man to reasonably fill all of them in his spare time in the middle of a war. But half of the room still looks boring and utilitarian, and now  _ that  _ starts to look out of place when the other half is all bright colors and interesting scents. 

So he fills the rest of plots in with soil and spreads them with sod cuttings, until there are nice, soft grassy patches throughout other half of the courtyards. The little artificial lawns aren’t nearly so out of place as empty metal plots are, and keep the room from looking disturbingly uncoordinated. They’re also soft and comfortable to stretch out on, if he just wants a minute to catch his breath, or have some time hidden away in peace and quiet. 

Ryou even manages, after a few tries, to repair the fountain in the center. It’s a simple fountain, matching the utilitarian, sleek designs Alteans seem to favor, but it’s still pretty as a centerpiece once it’s cleaned up. The trickle of water creates a soothing white noise that Ryou really enjoys, on days when he just wants some time to think. 

The only plot he  _ doesn’t  _ touch is the ring right around the fountain itself. There’s clearly space for more soil, and something else can be planted here. But Ryou has a gut feeling that, as the center of the courtyards, something  _ special  _ has to go there. And he has no idea what it is yet.

So for now, the space remains unclaimed, and Ryou trusts he’ll figure out what goes there when the time comes.

But despite that, in the end the whole room looks—if not professionally landscaped or gorgeously arranged—at least full of  _ life  _ again. The Altean steel paths weave through the patches of soft grass or the beds of flowers and plants and vegetables, and creates an interesting but not unpleasant contrast of organic life and artfully built machine. It’s...nice. 

Though still a little bewildering, at the same time, to think  _ he  _ managed to put all this together. 


	3. Chapter 3

The courtyards more or less take care of themselves, these quintents, although Ryou keeps an eye on everything anyway. He has a better idea of what he’s doing now, but sometimes setbacks just happen that need to be fixed.

He especially makes it a habit to give the garden a once over after long strings of time when he’s away from it on missions. The Galra Empire hasn’t stopped causing trouble just because Ryou found himself a hobby, and he’s still called upon regularly for combat or diplomacy. But he does like to make sure everything is still in order, once he has a chance to check in on things.

It’s on one of those check-ins, after a three-quintent diplomatic mission off-ship, that he gets an unexpected surprise. 

Because as he rounds the corner of one bed of flowers, intending to check the blue-stemmed farcithius to see if the leaf-rot had receded, he comes face to face with Keith. Specifically, a Keith comfortably sitting against the wall and hidden by a screen of plants and flowers, who gives Ryou a deer-caught-in-the-headlights look when he realizes he isn’t alone anymore.

“Uh,” Keith stammers, after a moment of staring. “Sorry. I’ll just…” He scrambles to his feet and glances towards the nearest door, guiltily hunting for an escape route. 

This is perplexing even for Ryou, who has a better understanding than most of how Keith thinks, even if he doesn’t share the same relationship with him that Shiro does anymore. “Woah,” he says, raising his hands placatingly. “I’m not chasing you out. I’m not even sure what you’re sorry for.” 

Keith looks enormously sheepish, but he stops side-eyeing the door like he’s considering scrambling for it. He stares at the dirt nearest to him and mutters, “Well, this is  _ your  _ get-away spot. I wasn’t trying to steal it. I didn’t realize you were back.” 

Ryou raises an eyebrow at that. “The talks went well, so I was able to get out a few vargas early. Keith...have you been sneaking in here whenever I’ve been away on a mission?”

Keith doesn’t verbally answer. But that stubborn stare and set of the jaw, combined with defensively crossed arms, says ‘you’re right but I refuse to admit to it,’ so that’s absolutely a ‘yes.’

“Keith,” Ryou says patiently. “Look at me for a sec.” He waits until he definitely has Keith’s full attention, and finishes, “You’re always allowed to come in here whenever you want. Even if I’m still on the ship. Or even in this room.”

Keith blinks at him.

“I’m serious,” Ryou says. “This place doesn’t belong to me. If anything, it’s Allura’s. It’s her Castle. If you want to hang out in here, go for it. Just don’t damage any of the plants and it’s fine.” 

“I wouldn’t do that,” Keith says, just a smidge defensive, before he settles again. “You’re serious? I thought this was...y’know...your place to get away. To work on the plants and not be bothered. I wouldn’t want to barge in on that.”

Considering how seriously Keith takes his own personal space and privacy, that doesn’t surprise Ryou at all. Keith can be—and has been—obnoxiously overprotective and watchful at times, after Ryou’s illness. But he has gotten better about it in recent feebs, and he’s still very aware of boundaries in the confines of the Castle of Lions. 

But Ryou shakes his head firmly in the negative. “It’s not like that. I mean sure, this is where I can work on my hobby, and I like doing that. That doesn’t mean nobody else is allowed in. It’d be a pretty terrible garden if it was only for me.” 

“Oh.” Keith seems to consider this for a moment, before finally nodding. “I...guess that makes sense. Okay then.” He visibly relaxes a little. 

Ryou decides to take the scrutiny off of him by crouching down to study the blue-stemmed farcithius he’d originally come for. The plant is, fortunately, doing much better. “So...how long have you been sneaking in here, anyway?”

Keith looks a little sheepish again, but after a moment he says, “Maybe a feeb. I like it in here. It’s...quiet. Reminds me of home. It’s nice when we’re stuck indoors for quintents at a time.”

Ryou nods in agreement. That, he can relate to. The Castle of Lions is enormous, but it’s amazing how much like a tiny cardboard box it can feel at times, or how easy it is for nine people, a cow, and four mice to step all over each others’ toes. And when they’re trapped in it for long stretches of time in space, it’s easy to get cabin fever. But in the courtyards, between the plants and the holograms of the sky around the ceiling, it’s easy to forget they’re in the middle of an enormous spaceship. 

“The grasses are probably more comfortable than the wall,” Ryou says mildly, gesturing in the general direction of one of the plots he’d turned into a small lawn. “It’s definitely more comfortable than the steel floor to sit on.” 

“It’s nice,” Keith agrees. “But it’s visible.”

Ah. Hiding, then. That would explain the sneaking.

“It’s not like I’m avoiding people,” Keith adds, a little defensively. “And if anyone needs me for an emergency I’m still here. It’s just…I’ve got a lot on my mind.”

“And sometimes you just want a place to be alone where people won’t track you down right away,” Ryou concludes. Keith nods.

Ryou isn’t really surprised by any of this. Keith does have a lot on his plate right now, and he _has_ been making an effort to work well with the team despite that. With their Voltron duties expanding as the coalition grows, and with more and more calls for auxiliary teams or priorities being shuffled, Keith has been taking turns as a team lead—if not _the_ team lead—more and more. 

And he still hates it. It’s more gradual this time, with Shiro mentoring him through more team exercises and helping him figure out his leadership style. Shiro works with him in a much less abrasive and confrontational way than Ryou had, thanks to  _ not  _ being mentally conditioned to cause trouble and take command. But Keith still struggles with accepting the role of leadership, or acknowledging that he could be great at it if he just set his mind to it. 

And there’s still  _ whatever  _ had happened with the Blade of Marmora. Ryou still isn’t clear on the details; he’d been in a cryopod at the time, thanks to his failsafe illness. But Keith’s interactions with the Blade have been strained ever since. And yet with more coalition duties requiring the Blade’s expertise, and Keith being the primary bridge between them, there’s no doubt that pressure is building. Ryou and Shiro are both concerned about what will happen when that finally comes to a head.

So Ryou can absolutely see why Keith might want to find a place to retreat for a few vargas, where nobody’s going to find him. Which discounts his room and the training deck immediately, because those are the first places anyone would look for him. 

But Ryou doesn’t bring up any of that. He’s not Keith’s commanding officer anymore, and he certainly isn’t the older brother figure Shiro has been for Keith for years. None of that is what Keith needs from him right now.

What he  _ can  _ be is a friend. So he says, “Well, you’re welcome to hide out here, and nobody will hear about it from me. Not even Shiro.” 

Keith’s eyebrows raise. “Really?”

“Promise,” Ryou assures. “And if you ever want to chat about whatever is on your mind, feel free. But you don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

“Thanks.”

So from then on out, sometimes Ryou has a visitor to the courtyard while he’s working. Keith is usually silent and barely noticeable, unless Ryou happens to be working on a plot near his chosen hiding place at the time. He stays out of the way and keeps to himself, and Ryou in turn leaves him alone, and they get along quite well.

Occasionally, they’ll shake things up, just for a change of pace. Some quintents Keith will steam to himself, until he finally snaps a few frustrations about his latest failures in training simulations, or how he doesn’t get why the Black Lion ever picked  _ him.  _

Ryou is careful to only listen, for these moments, other than the occasional hum of agreement or prompt to continue. Their interactions have been  _ better,  _ since Ryou got sick. But he does still remember a few of the times he’d blatantly countered Keith’s attempts at leading and undermined him in front of the others. 

He can’t help but think that at least a little of Keith’s lack of confidence as a leader is because of  _ him.  _ And even if he’d been acting under subconscious influences inserted into his brain, he still feels a little guilty about that. So he keeps it simple, and definitely avoids anything that could be construed as lecturing or challenging to Keith’s confidence in the matter.

It seems to help, anyway. Keith always leaves the courtyards in a more relaxed mood. And no one ever  _ does  _ figure out where he’s hiding.

Keith returns the favor sometimes, too. Once he helps Ryou transplant a large plant that’s a little too big for one person to lift. Another time he helps harvest a bucketful of berries. Once, during a minor infestation of weeds that had somehow been tracked in on someone’s clothing, he asks Ryou how to identify the problem plants and then silently helps pull all of them without any prompting. Keith is no gardener, and has no interest in the overall care of the plants, but he doesn’t seem to mind helping Ryou out here and there either.

After a while, it just becomes their thing. The way that Ryou and Keith interact, not Shiro and Keith. It’s certainly not Keith  _ mimicking  _ Shiro, either, with their borderline obnoxious tendency to both act overprotective when it comes to Ryou’s illness. It’s nice, to bond a little on their own terms, without Ryou’s clone status or awkward past experiences getting in the way.

And it’s sort of nice, too, to know that all his hard work in the courtyards is appreciated. 

* * *

Keith might be the courtyard’s most regular visitor, even if nobody knows it. But the rest of the team does stop by on occasion.

Hunk steps in fairly often to collect vegetables or herbs for dinner, and Lance will sometimes stop by to cut sections of sweetgrass for Kaltenecker as a treat. Ryou’s caught Coran sneaking soyaberries more than once. And everyone else has poked their head in once or twice, to see the place if nothing else. Even Pidge, with her steadfast dislike of the outdoors, grudgingly admits that the courtyards look nice. 

“Not as nice as the tech that went into their life support,” she hastens to add, “but, y’know. Nice.” 

So Ryou isn’t usually caught off guard when someone pokes their head into the courtyard. But even so, Allura approaching him mid-quintent with a contemplative look on her face as she surveys the room is odd enough to catch his attention.

“Is something wrong, princess?” Ryou asks, frowning. If they were under attack, Allura wouldn’t have bothered to come down and get him; she’d have announced it over the intercoms. There are no missions today. And as far as Ryou knows, there’s nothing diplomatic in the near future he needs to prepare for either. There’s no need for either of them to bounce ideas off the other for how to approach the situation like they usually do. 

“Nothing is wrong, no,” Allura assures quickly. “I was merely interested in seeing the courtyards again. And also, perhaps, to ask you for your assistance in a matter.” 

Ryou blinks at that. But before he can ask into it further, Allura looks around at the dozens of flowers in all shapes, colors and sizes, and smiles fondly. 

“It is nice to see the courtyard so full again,” she says after a moment. “It is a little more...eclectic, than the original palace gardeners might have designed. But considering our circumstances, I find it fitting. I think mother would have liked it.”

That’s high praise indeed, considering. Allura talks about her father often, but her mother less so. That one of those rare occasions would be to compliment Ryou’s work is an honor.

“I’m glad you think so,” Ryou says, as Allura gently touches one of the swirling, dusky pink and gold nebula lilies closest to her with awe. “And of course you’re welcome to walk through here any time. But you said you needed help with something?”

“Ah. Yes.” Allura withdraws from the nebula lily and turns to face Ryou. Her back is straight and her hands are clasped in front of her, which is her automatic dignitary pose; he recognizes it from half a dozen diplomacy occasions. Whatever she’s about to ask for, it’s clearly very serious to her. 

“You have obviously displayed no small skill at growing things,” Allura says, looking around the room again.

“I wouldn’t call it that, so much,” Ryou admits honestly. “Just a lot of experimenting and learning from any mistakes I make.” 

“But you’ve managed to create all of  _ this,” _ Allura says. “So I wanted to ask if you could, perhaps, grow another kind of flower for me.” 

Ryou blinks again at that. “I can certainly try,” he says slowly. “What did you have in mind?”

Allura hesitates, for just a moment. But then she produces a small packet clasped in one hand, and holds it out to him. “These,” she says softly, “are the very last juniberry seeds from Altea. If you could, I would very much like to see them bloom once more.”

Ryou stares at the packet, then at Allura, shocked. “Me? But...those have to be special to you. And if they’re the last ones...don’t you want to bring them back yourself?”

Allura shakes her head. “It is precisely  _ because  _ they are the very last ones that I do not wish to do this myself,” she explains. “I never had mother’s gift for plants and flowers. I’ve been learning more about my abilities, and perhaps if there was a dying juniberry, I could share energy with it to help it heal. Like I did with the balmera, or Voltron. 

“But I still haven’t had training, and flowers are far more delicate than planet-sized beasts, or the Lions. I do not trust myself to be able to grow them, or try to heal them, without accidentally killing them. So I’ve always been afraid to try planting these.” 

She bites her lip for a moment, but then adds softly, “But perhaps you could, now. And the juniberry...it is such an exquisite flower. I can never go home to Altea, but perhaps if a little of Altea could be reborn here…” 

Her voice dies off, and she stares at the packet of seeds in her hand. Ryou’s heart goes out to her. He can’t imagine what kind of position she must be in, never being able to go home again. To have one’s whole family, their whole  _ race,  _ eradicated thousands of years ago. He’d like to help. 

At the same time, he’s not sure if he can. The thought of trying and failing to grow those seeds is daunting. What if he messes up somehow? Misreads the plant’s needs, and ends up killing them? Those are Allura’s last chances for a little piece of home to return to her. Does he really want to risk ripping that away from her forever?

“I’m...not sure I’m qualified for it, princess,” he admits slowly. “I don’t know anything about Altean plants, or what they need.”

“There may be records in the Castle data logs,” Allura says. “The gardeners would have had to care for them ten thousand years ago. And I believe you are more than capable. You were able to do all of  _ this.”  _ She gestures around at the rest of the courtyard. “I have complete faith that you can care for these properly as well.” 

And she holds out the packet of seeds, very gently, with a hopeful expression on her face.

Ryou takes a deep breath. This is probably a very stupid decision, and he doesn’t have nearly so much faith in himself as she seems to have in him, but he can hardly say no. He  _ has  _ to try.

“Okay,” he says, carefully taking the small packet of seeds from her. “I’ll do my best. But if you can track down those logs so Pidge can translate them from Altean, that would be helpful. I definitely want to know what I’m working with before I try this.”

“Yes! I will. Right away.” Allura actually beams at him. “Thank you, Ryou. I really appreciate this. And I have a feeling you’ll simply love the juniberries when they bloom. They are the most beautiful flower in all of the universe.”

Ryou’s not so certain they will be. In his opinion, that title firmly belongs to the silver star-flowers on the dream ivy. But it’s obviously important to Allura, so he’ll do his best to make sure those flowers bloom again, ten thousand years later.

True to her word, Allura does track down the gardener’s own logs, and Pidge is able to translate them with a program she had written up for just such a purpose. Once Ryou has all the data safely downloaded on his holopad, he spends a full spicolian movement carefully studying all the details. 

There’s a lot to keep in mind. Without Altea itself existing anymore, Ryou will have to replicate the conditions of the planet exactly. Unlike the gardeners ten thousand years ago, he can’t merely walk outside on the planet and collect the appropriate soil, or use the water from a nearby stream. And based on everything he’s reading, juniberries are one of the more delicate flowers Altea has to offer, originally growing in low valleys safe from the stonefalls and other strong weather systems. If they don’t get exactly what they need, they’ll die. 

So once he’s finally read everything there is to read, it takes him the better part of another spicolian movement to make sure everything is set up properly. He works with Matt to ensure the watering system can be targeted very specifically to the juniberry plot, so they can get exactly the water composition they need, with some extra minerals mixed in. The soil has to be carefully prepared with specific nutrients to match the original Altean composition, and he’ll have to keep an eye on it periodically to make sure it remains healthy for the plants. 

Fortunately, once everything is prepared, he can get to work planting. And he’s finally found  _ exactly  _ the right flower for that special centerpiece plot, in the middle of the Altean courtyards. 

He only plants half of the seeds to start. If he’s miscalculated, he doesn’t want all of Allura’s last chances to bring back a little bit of Altea to be destroyed. Ten little seeds go into the prepared soil at careful intervals around the fountain, and then all Ryou can do is monitor, and wait. 

It’s possibly the most nerve wracking wait he’s ever had, for a plant. For everything else he’s grown, he’s always known that if something went wrong, it’s not the end of the world. If these don’t grow, Allura might be devastated. 

So when the first little shoots poke up above the soil, Ryou actually breathes a sigh of relief. He checks on each tiny bud, fearing the worst. But they all appear healthy, just like the logs said they should. 

And as quintents pass, the little stems grow taller and thicker, and finally the buds split open to reveal reddish-pink petals and a bright yellow center. A few quintents later they’re in full bloom, with the petals even larger than before, and a sweet scent that’s quite pleasant. 

They might not be the  _ most  _ exquisite flower in the universe, but Ryou will admit, they are very nice.

It’s with pride that he calls Allura down to the courtyards, once the flowers are all in bloom. She stops dead the moment she sees the first of the flowers around the fountain, eyes wide. 

“How do they look?” Ryou asks. “Alright? It’s hard to tell when I’ve never actually seen one before.”

“They’re  _ perfect,”  _ Allura says, with a delighted grin. She hurries over to the nearest flower and kneels down in front of it, running a finger gently over the petals, before bending close to take a sniff with closed eyes. “I never thought I’d see one again. Or smell one. I’ve missed these so much…”

“I’m happy to help,” Ryou says, although he’s doing his best to mask his relief at the same time. He’d gotten it right. He’d grown a flower that hadn’t even  _ existed  _ for ten thousand years! 

“There are some other seeds I can plant too,” he adds. “I just wanted to be sure these were ok first. And once they’re all fully mature, the logs have instructions on how to breed more. I’m hoping to fill this whole ring at some point.” 

Allura breathes in softly. “You can make more?”

“Someday down the line,” Ryou says. “It’ll take time, of course. Plants are pretty good at surviving if you give them a chance, though.” He smiles. “Eventually I’ll hopefully have enough that you can pick one or two and take them back to your room, if you want. Or I can transplant some. Up to you.”

“That would be lovely.” Allura takes another deep, appreciative sniff of the nearest flower, and then stands up again. 

Ryou expects her to examine the other nine flowers, circling the gently trickling fountain. But to his surprise, Allura turns and wraps Ryou in a nearly bone-crushing hug. “Thank you,” she whispers. “Thank you so much. I don’t think you can ever really understand what this means to me.”

Ryou blinks for a moment, surprised. But then he returns the hug gently. “I can’t,” he agrees. “But I’m happy I can help all the same. And thanks for trusting me with something so important to you.”

Allura nods into his shoulder, and then finally lets go. This time she does do as Ryou expects, circling the fountain to look at the rest of the flowers. She stops to kneel in front of, touch, and smell each one, and her happy smile doesn’t go away the entire time. 

She tells stories as she does, about walking through the palace fields and gardens and picking flowers, exploring with her father and mother. There isn’t any bitterness in her tone as she speaks, or sadness. These are good memories, untainted by misfortune. 

Ryou figures that maybe he’s given Allura more than one kind of gift, with that. And he doesn’t regret taking the chance for a second.

* * *

“So. This is pretty impressive.”

Ryou looks up from pruning the white hisporanicus as Shiro strides towards him, and smiles. “Hey. Fancy seeing you here.” Shiro had been down to see the courtyards once or twice, just like everyone else. But flowers and plants had never really been a point of interest for him, and Ryou doesn’t see how a space voyage could have changed that much. 

“It’s been a while since I saw the place. Allura was really excited about those flowers of hers from Altea. I figured I’d swing by and see them, and you.” He glances around again. “It’s really grown since last time. I’m impressed.”

“It’s not as impressive as it looks,” Ryou says. “Once everything is set up, the Altean technology mostly takes care of it. It’s a closed system in an artificial environment, so not a lot can go wrong.” He shrugs. 

“Still more than any of us could manage,” Shiro points out. “I know I could never do this.”

“You could,” Ryou says. “I’m sort of living proof of that.”

But Shiro shakes his head. “Not true. I never would have had the motivation to get this far. I’d probably have handed that plant over to Ryner from the beginning.”

Ryou frowns. “But you’re the one that suggested learning how to take care of it in the first place.” 

“That’s because I’m good at leading,” Shiro says, “not because I’d be any good with plants. And honestly, I can’t even take credit for that. I had some good advice.”

Ryou merely raises an eyebrow at that.

“The point,” Shiro finishes, “Is that you took that suggestion and you made all this yours. This? Is all you.” 

Maybe he’s right. Ryou hadn’t exactly gotten into this with the intent of building an entire courtyard landscape, and he’d fallen into the hobby more than anything else. But it is definitely something that’s his,  _ purely  _ his, and nothing at all that belongs to Shiro. And he enjoys it, too.

So maybe this  _ is  _ all Ryou. He kinda likes the sound of that.

“How’s the first plant doing, anyway?” Shiro asks. He pokes the white hisporanicus curiously with his left hand, until Ryou lightly slaps it away from the extremely delicate buds. “The one that started it all?”

“The dream ivy? Good. Really good.” A little too good, in fact. By now it’s so enormous its golden vines and silver star-flowers have all but overtaken his clothing chest, leaving only a small space for the chameleon succulent. He’ll have to transplant it to a bigger pot, soon; the carved amber planter just isn’t big enough anymore. “I’m hoping to give you a cutting of it soon, actually.” 

Shiro holds up his hands in a forestalling gesture. “Woah, woah. I just established that plants are  _ not  _ my thing. I don’t know what I’d do with a piece of that dream ivy.”

Ryou snorts. “I’d take care of it for you,” he says. “Don’t worry about that. It has some properties I think you’d like, though. Just trust me on this.”

“If you say so,” Shiro says, a little doubtfully. 

“I do say. Who’s the plant guy between us? I know what I’m talking about.” 

“Alright, alright,” Shiro says, with a mix of fondness and exasperation. “I believe you.” 

“Good.” Ryou turns back to the pruning job. “The juniberries are over there, around the fountain. I finally got a new batch of seeds to start growing, so it’s still a little uneven.”

“You know I don’t really care about the presentation,” Shiro says, amused.

“Right. No creative vision whatsoever. How could I forget,” Ryou says teasingly. 

Shiro rolls his eyes a little as he ambles over towards the fountain and the juniberries. But after a moment he stops and says, “Hey, Ryou?”

“Mm?”

“You did a good job. Nice going.” 

Somehow, Ryou has a feeling he’s not just talking about the garden, but everything behind it, too. And he can’t help but smile a little at that acknowledgement, absurdly pleased.

“Thanks.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I already had Allura’s piece of this story in mind a while ago, even before Season 8. When Colleen grew Allura a juniberry in canon I was like ‘damn! They stole my idea!’ But since most of us are pretending S8 didn’t happen anyway….then I’m doing it my way.


End file.
